New program gives Cook County Jail ex-inmates fresh start

A large trailer sitting a half-mile from the Cook County Jail will serve as a "revolutionary" tool to help newly released inmates with addictions or mental health problems, officials said Wednesday at the facility's unveiling.

The structure can host up to 12 people, giving them a place where they can sleep their first night out of jail instead of wandering the neighborhood and where social workers can connect them with treatment centers and other assistance.

Sheriff Tom Dart, who speaks often about the jail's struggle to serve mentally ill inmates, said the new program aims to disrupt a cycle in which detainees leave the lockup with no resources and no services, only to swiftly return.

"Instead of just randomly, routinely throwing people out to the streets, where you know absolutely what's going to happen, we now have this thoughtful progression where you treat (and) stabilize people in the correctional environment … and then hand them off to individuals who are trained to help them get back into society," he said.

The program, known as the Supportive Release Center, is being run by Treatment Alternatives for Safe Communities, a nonprofit that connects people in the criminal justice system with substance abuse treatment and mental health services. Executive Director Pam Rodriguez said it has been open for about a month and already is seeing good results.

She told of a man who came out of the jail with a heroin addiction and no place to stay. A case manager at the center got him into a residential substance abuse recovery program the next morning, and a few days later, the man's mother called to say it was the first time he had ever made it into treatment.

"She was incredibly grateful that we were here ... to help him get his chance," Rodriguez said.

The center is a tidy space that holds a consultation room, a pantry, a TV and chairs that recline into beds. It typically receives people between 5 p.m. and midnight, offering them an evaluation, something to eat, a shower and fresh clothing.

TASC staffers also try to connect released inmates with social service programs, and the next morning, drive them to their next stop. Another nonprofit, Heartland Alliance Health, offers long-term case management to ex-detainees who are homeless.

"We've had a couple of guys that have literally said to us, 'If I didn't have this, I was just going to walk Kedzie all night,'" program administrator Robin Moore said. "It's kind of that safe landing place for some of them until we can get them reconnected with family."

Jail officials said an average of 70 people are released each day between midafternoon and midnight, and about half are eligible for services at the Supportive Release Center.

There isn't room for everyone, but that will allow the University of Chicago Health Lab to compare ex-detainees who go to the center with those who don't. Positive findings — as reflected in lower recidivism rates — would provide evidence to other communities that the program could work for them, too, Dart said.

"To have something so logical and thoughtful ... and then adding that study component to it — this will make it so it can be replicated throughout the country," he said.

Rodriguez said the center's opening marks another step in the justice system's evolving philosophy on how best to deal with people whose crimes are the result of addiction or mental illness.

"People talk about our clients having to hit bottom," Rodriguez said. " ... What they really need is hope. They need an image and a belief that there can be something different. We come together to lend them all of the hope and the enthusiasm and the optimism that we have about their future, because we've seen so many people turn their lives around."